


legacy

by cosmya



Series: stellacene [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Dominance, F/F, Force Bond (Star Wars), Prophecies, Sith Code, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force Ships It, force impregnation, rey is revan's descendant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-10 22:55:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 9,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmya/pseuds/cosmya
Summary: Amnesia is a cruel thing. Not because one forgets, but because one eventually begins to remember.Revan has once again embraced her identity. Now, she must look to the future.





	1. Chapter 1

The midday air smells like lightning and burnt skin. The bodies of the Jedi I once considered allies, if not friends, lay at my feet. The stars above us shine bright on Bastila and I, though the massive shadow of the Star Forge tries to blot them out.

Once its threat is no more, it will be time for us to conquer them.

My identities have merged into one; I am Revan and Revan alone. There is much I have forgotten, but I know the knowledge will return to me soon. I want to call this fate “inevitable”. But I know that the word  _ inevitable _ ceases to have meaning in light of the Force.

The Force has brought Bastila and I together, but it was my fault for falling in love with her. How couldn’t I have? 

Bastila looks at me like she always does; my paradigm to her is being known and unknowable. One in the same, but one apart. The bright light glaring off the white stone of the Rakata temple highlights the pureness in her face: the Dark Side has not yet warped her features as it has mine. She could pass for a Jedi yet. But I can feel my presence fixing her already. 

She sheathes her lightsaber. She sounds unbothered. “So we’ve done it.”

I nod. “It” could have meant a litany of different things. I feel as if the ambiguity mirrors who we are and who we have been together. Vaporous yet viscous, indefinable yet undeniable. The visions we have shared were often cloudy and cryptic, though I could always sense shapes in the haze. A lesser person - a Jedi - would have assumed that these gaps were there to prove that we still had free will. That we could fill them in with light, that our sunshine would cut the fog and prove that the dark ending foretold was actually amendable.

This is a falsehood. Becoming what we are, master and apprentice,  _ had _ been our free will all along. We are not tools of the light, but tools of ourselves and ourselves alone. If that is what the dark side means, then it is no wonder why the Jedi have shied from it.

Now we have codified what we saw in those visions. Not that that means that it is any less real than when it existed only in our minds, for that is the power we hold. The only difference now is that the others - the dead Jedi at our feet, Malak, all who doubted that we would ever fall - cannot ignore what we have been telling them all along.

The problem is that the visions all ended on top of this temple. 

_ We’ve done it _ , she said. A statement free of time. “Our victory was known from the beginning,” I state.

Bastila takes a deep breath of the salty air and looks up towards where the Forge hovers in the bright sky. “Malak does not stand a chance,” she says.

I put my hand on her shoulder; it is hot from the stars glaring down on the black fabric covering it. The generic robes of the other Sith that lived and trained here don’t fit her. She is far from generic. “He was always inferior. Ordinary. He had ambitions because he was told to.”  _ I told him to _ , I remind myself. I am still learning how to be Revan.

“He was nothing compared to you.”

I realize that we are talking about Malak as though he were already dead. “I agree. Though I must be grateful to him for one thing.”

Bastila straightens under my touch. “It is no mystery why our ‘falls’, so to speak, happened in tandem.”

“No,” I agree. I only wish that it had been me to pervert her, more than I had, to strike the blows which crumbled her shell of Jedi goodwill. 

She senses my regret, and turns to look me in the eye. “Do not be angry with yourself for failing to corrupt me earlier. You were close. Closer than you know.”

She doesn’t try to explain why I was not fully successful. Perhaps there is a simple explanation, that she could not accept her role of apprentice until I reembraced my own role as master. We both know that there is more to the story and that neither of us want to acknowledge that the Jedi had the effect on us that they did.

“It is immaterial now,” she continues. “It doesn’t matter who started it. You and I will end it.”

“Indeed. But what after that?”

We muse together. In Bastila’s presence, I feel myself coming back. My patterns of speech and thought, my unwavering knowledge that this is the correct direction for the galaxy. The taste of freedom, the taste of lust. 

I will not forget how she taught me those in my mental exile. 

“It is time, Bastila.” I take my hand from her shoulder and make to leave this place. I am filled with images of my once-companions on the Ebon Hawk, waiting anxiously for my return, rightly worried that the darkness I had flirted with for so long had consumed me completely. My bloodlust surges as I imagine myself proving them right.

“Must it be?” she asks. She smiles and takes my hand in hers, pulling me back. “What do you see, Revan? Do you see an end? A timeline we must adhere to if we are to defeat Malak?”

I smile back at her. I brush my thumb along her hand; it is scarred with Force-healed cuts. Perhaps her face does not yet show the undeniable marks of the Dark Side, but her body does. “You know as well as I that I have seen nothing.”

“Maybe you haven’t been sleeping enough.”

It is true, for I haven’t felt the need to sleep in days. The Force sates that thirst. “Do you think there will be more? More visions?” I ask, allowing myself a moment of weakness towards her. I don’t know that my capacity to ask her questions will ever fade.

“I don’t see why not. We are not bound to patterns anymore - you’re still thinking like a Jedi, Revan. I confess that I am still shaking that particular habit as well.” Her fingers curl into mine and I feel her nails sharp on the back of my hand. “The Force did not give us those visions because we are its mindless conduits. We had them because we are its wielders. We willed them into existence. We bent the Force to show us what we needed to do.”

“You are wise, Bastila.”

She smirks at me. “The Jedi always seemed to think the opposite.”

I make a mental note to ask her whether she thinks we ought to kill or subjugate the Jedi left on Dantooine once Malak is dealt with. “So you believe that we can do it again.”

“Exactly. Our link has only strengthened. Think of what it might show us next.”

I had thought of that already, even before I knew that she would come back to me. I thought of our Force Bond and what it had wrought. What potential we could have if we bound it together tighter and tighter. What the Jedi forbade, and what promise I had never considered keeping since I met Bastila for the first time after forgetting my identity as Revan.

For the best part about being the most powerful of the Sith is that it is I, and I alone, who gets to decide what makes a Sith. Passion, rage, betrayal... fine. Those are not the only things that fester inside of me; there is something much more frightening lurking in the shadows. 

I have seen its face.  _ Her  _ face.

If embodying the Sith includes manic, star-shattering, earthrending love for Bastila Shan, then I suppose _she_ should be called master and I servant.

She does not think the same of me, though she feels glimpses of it every so often. She blames them on our connection and that alone. There is still fear in her. Soon, I will rip it out.

“It would be foolish for us to enter the Star Forge blind if we have a skeleton key inside of us. Let’s go,” I command.

  
She pulls me around to her small escape ship. It is not expressly made for two, at least not two hulking soldiers in clunky armor who are determined to keep as far away from each other as possible. But  _ we _ will fit.


	2. Chapter 2

The inhabitants of the Ebon Hawk crumble easily and I feel no regret for ending them as I did Juhani and Jolee. We didn’t sneak up to them like assassins, ashamed of our desire to steal their lives away. We let them speak their words of hatred and renouncement first. The sentiment feeds us.

And then, when we were satiated, we killed them.

It had been a long time coming. I didn’t like the jealous look in Carth’s eyes when he saw Bastila and I together. It was no secret that he wanted what I wanted, and that he wanted me in equal measure. He wanted love, and he wanted to inflict pain. He could’ve made a decent Sith if he wasn’t so stupid. He died still wanting.

The rest weren’t so annoying. Canderous wanted to join us, but it seemed neater to rid ourselves of him, too. Plus, killing a Mandalorian once more filled me with good memories. Mission and Zaalbar watched, horrified, like the children they were. At least they got some excitement and travel in their lives rather than being decimated with the rest of Taris. They seemed unsurprised that this, too, would be their end.

I let Bastila finish all of them. She makes a beautiful executioner.

We left the bodies around the map in the main section of the ship and went to the starboard sleeping cabin. I feel more relaxed, now, more subdued, my power idling and multiplying to be unleashed later. “I hope I remember how to sleep,” I admit to the only person still alive on the ship. 

Bastila laughs a little and sits on one of the beds, removing the accoutrements from her hair. I think about how she left her lightsaber in the other room. She feels safe with me, as she should. “If you need help, wake me.”

“I will,” I say. I can’t refuse this offer. Even if I felt myself slipping away, I would hold myself awake so that I could ask her to help me. 

We don’t remove our robes, only loosen them. I crawl into the bed opposite Bastila’s. For all of my darkness, for all of my willing to kill and torture and steal for what I want, I cannot imagine doing anything that might drive Bastila away, like crawling atop her in the night and taking what I wish for. I know it is paradoxical. Yet, still, violating her fills me with disgust. I worry briefly that it is a vestige of light still living inside me, but drive that thought away quickly. Wild love is a tool of the Dark Side, not the light.

We dim the lights and cool the air in the ship and I pull the blankets over myself. I try to stare straight upwards, but my eyes keep drifting towards the dark shape in the opposite corner, not to mention the clock on the wall. 

I don’t have to force myself to stay awake. I could not sleep if this was my first time in a bed in a hundred years. My body itches.

I let ten minutes pass, and then I sigh deeply. I feel like a little girl again, spending the night with a friend for the first time. “Bastila?”

“Mm? Yes?” That was not the tone of someone who was just rudely awoken.

“I’ve definitely forgotten how to sleep.”

“Think of an ocean. A vast, deep ocean, and you’re sinking to the bottom.”

I do think of this for a moment, because I want to humor her. But there are shapes in _ that _ darkness, too, and they put me on edge. “That didn’t work.”

I hear Bastila turning over, probably to look at me, but it is too dark to see her face. “Then focus on the Force alone, welling deep and strong inside you. Feel it sink and eddy, feel it whirlpool, feel it filling your chasms. Meditate on it. It washes away your thoughts, it intensifies your emotions. Think of not what you can do with it. Think of what it feels to _ be _the Force, independent of the universe.”

I don’t even try to do that. I would like to do it, someday, truly, when the time is right, perhaps once Malak is finished. But right now, all I can focus on is Bastila’s voice when she instructs me. “Bastila, I don’t think this is going to work.”

“Mm. I’m not too surprised. The amount of power you must feel when you do that is staggering. Probably not helpful for falling asleep.”

“Why did you suggest it, then?”

“Because I would like to feel what you feel when you do it,” she says. “I won’t hide my intentions, Revan. I wanted to see how strongly our visions were when you were at your strongest, even if I was the only one asleep.”

I smile and hope that she can see it through the darkness. “I would like to see that, too. I’m not sure if this is the best method, though.”

“We can try it again when we are doing it only for amusement, and not for gain,” she suggests. 

“I would like that.”

She lets the silence dwell, and I wonder whether she’s fallen asleep. I try, because I want to dream, but in reality I am no closer than I was when we got here. The myriad moving motors and pistons on the ship fill my ears with buzzing and my body with minute vibrations that I wish would go away. After a while, I stop bothering to keep my eyes closed.

It is for the best, because there is something for them to see. A dark shape moves towards me.Yet I see no glowing lightsaber nor metallic blade glinting in the low light.

She lays down next to me, pulling the covers over herself. The bed is small and there is no space to stretch between us. She twines her hand ‘round my arm and lets her head roll to the side to rest on my shoulder.

In an instant, we are asleep.

* * *

The vision is clear as the daylight on the Rakata island. It moves in fast-forward. We thunder through the Star Forge, we slaughter thousands of soldiers and acolyte Sith. We find Malak. 

Bodies in tanks… a disfigured face… life draining out of everything… stars going dark… it ends how it always ends. A crimson lightsaber thrust through a heart. Another one swinging around to behead the betrayer.

Then, the fog begins floating in.

I see us from afar. Our bodies stand, close together, on the deck of the Forge. Below us, Malak’s body lies prone and lifeless on the metal tiles. _ He _is unmistakable, but our faces are obscured in dark clouds. Every so often I see glimpses. 

Bastila’s long, pale fingers touch my face.

My hand reaches around her back.

Our lips touch, and the clouds thicken and darken and I see lightning sparking like angry flies. All goes black and grey. We are in a maelstrom.

When it clears, I see a girl.

It is neither I nor Bastila. She is young, brown-haired, plain. Alone. She is on a planet where there is sand everywhere, covering every inch of its surface, but it is darker than the sand of Tatooine. Something inside of me says that this is the distant future, and I believe it. 

The young girl puts her hand above her brow to block the sun and squints into the distance. A massive ship crashes to the ground and sends a tidal wave of sand into the sky that could bury a city.

I see her smile. 

We awake.


	3. Chapter 3

I sit bolt upright in the shabby bed. Something has changed.

Bastila is laying flat on her back, eyes open, though her brow is furrowed and she looks troubled. The ship is quiet; the dead have stayed dead. I look to the clock on the opposite wall. Only a few minutes have passed.

Slowly, Bastila rolls onto her side and looks at me. She is trying to contort her expression into something resembling calm. She is not very successful.

I’m not sure whether she is thinking about our kiss, or trying not to think of it. I, too, reside in that dual space.

Bastila pulls herself together and sits up, taking care to move a few inches away from me. She stares at her hands, or perhaps at the scars crisscrossing them. This is the most uncomfortable I have seen her since before she welcomed the intimate embrace of the Dark Side. “It appears that Malak will not pose much of a threat,” she says, a note of strained professionalism in her voice.

“Are you surprised?” I ask, letting sarcasm drip into my voice.

Bastila begins pinning back up her hair. “I find it interesting,” she starts, choosing her words carefully, “that our vision did not include the fate of the Star Forge.”

I know she is trying to be serious, but I cannot help but laugh at her careful skirting of the  _ truly  _ interesting parts of our dream. “Really, Bastila? That is what you take away from what we’ve seen? Malak’s defeat and the Star Forge? Nothing more?”

Perhaps I have been too cruel - she does pose important concerns, like the fate of the galaxy - but her words have hurt me, if only slightly. I turn the lights on to see her blushing.

“I-I’m working chronologically.” She finishes with her hair and climbs out of bed, flustered.

“Flustered” is not a trait I normally stomach, not since my actualization has near-completed itself. But in Bastila it is so easy to see how her anxiety - her penchant for getting flustered, even after being freed from the chains of the Jedi - leads her towards frustration. That frustration bubbles into anger, and anger transmutes to passion, and therein lies her source of power. 

I only hope that, now that she’s seen it coming, she will direct those emotions towards me sooner rather than later. The flower is ready to bloom, the butterfly is poised to emerge. I have always loved a metamorphosis.

Her wings have not yet unfurled, so I humor her anyway. “Chronologically. In that case, I suppose we did not see what happens to the Star Forge because I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet.”

“You haven’t?” she asks, surprised, and stares at me, hands on her hips.

“No.”

“Aren’t you going to take command of it? Isn’t that why we’re here? To crush the Republic, take revenge on the remaining Jedi, use it to exert your will over the galaxy?  _ Master? _ ”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m telling the truth, Bastila. I may have embraced being Revan once more, but I am still learning how to be myself. I do not know exactly what I would have done before. You seem to think I would do the same thing Malak is doing. I’m not so sure.”

She purses her lips, frustrated. I’m reminded of how little she truly knew me before the Jedi stole my identity, not that it was her fault. The Jedi had clouded her mind completely against me. The Jedi had clouded  _ my  _ mind completely against me.

“I don’t blame you, Bastila,” I continue. “Search yourself. Consider what the Jedi taught you about the nature of the Sith.”

She softens; she remembers that she is the apprentice here and I have a trove of wisdom with which to teach her. She sits back down next to me. “I apologize for my insolence, Revan. I confess that those memories still influence me.”

“What did they say?” I ask gently.

“They taught me that the true nature of the Sith is violence. Violence and pain, locked in an eternal cycle, masquerading as power.” She says this like she is reciting an oft-spoken line for a strict teacher.

“And is that true, Bastila?”

“It is true of Malak,” she answers poignantly.

I smile at her cleverness. “You’re right. That is why Malak is weak,” I explain. “That is why we can beat him with such ease. I’ve seen the face of the Dark Side, Bastila. The truth of it. It is not pain, nor violence, though it accepts those as cogs in a much greater machine.”

She stares at me, a blank slate, saying nothing, nor begging for me to continue. Her pride is too great for that. Pride is an emotion I can respect. Of course, I was going to tell her all I knew anyway. This might be a strange place for a lesson, but these are strange times.

And I feel, once more, like a Master.

“The primal nature of the Force is chaos, Bastila. Uncertainty, uncontrollable entropy, is the natural state of the galaxy. Accidents, randomness, mutation, that which began the universe itself and that which sustains it. The Dark Side is simply that which embraces this instead of fights against it.”

“And the Light is not Light at all, but... the futile desire to control the very nature of the uncontrollable?” she posits.   
  


“Essentially. Abstinence, in all its many forms, is the great failure of the Jedi. You know this. The Jedi seek to control the Force in ways that make them feel noble. But in this way they deny its nature. Pain is just as much a part of the Force, and a part of life, as happiness is.” As I monologue, or rather, teach, I feel my lips invoking ancient words, like the amnesia had never happened, like I had said this before, or perhaps simply thought it.

“Abstinence. I can attest to that.”

Something I have not felt before flickers to life inside of me, but I know that now is not the time. “You can understand how knowing this powered me in my prime. I was capable of so much because I welcomed the unexpected, prodded what hadn’t changed in too long, set events into motion that affected the future in ways only I could predict.” I decide not to reveal to Bastila what role my master played in this, if only because I am not sure, either. “I wielded the power of the Dark Side, and I now wield it again. Yes, there are upstarts who call themselves Sith, and if they are lucky they may misunderstand the Force and still have their time in power. But it will be short-lived, and brutally cyclical, because they cannot predict, nor even accept, their own fall.”

Bastila is silent, digesting my words, but I can feel them bolstering her. It is no mystery why she understands them implicitly despite her earlier doubts. When she speaks once more, I am reminded of why I love her.

She looks at me and runs a thumb over my cracked and creviced cheekbone. “And what of your fall?”

My mouth curves into a wicked smile. “You will be my fall, Bastila. But you will also sustain me. You will ensure that my legacy lives on. My life will end, as ours all will. But my mind, my truth, the Dark Side itself will live on because of you.”

There is a change in her. It is subtle, but I can see a yellowing around her irises. “I think I understand.”

Of course she does. She saw what I saw. The girl on the desert planet. Our distant daughter.


	4. Chapter 4

We left our conversation at that, as I knew I had given her much to think about. Moreover, I wanted to let her determine how our relationship was to change in the coming hours without my undue input. I do not wish to coerce her into loving me, or at least for her to believe that she is being coerced. 

But she knows that it is I who initiates the visions, and I have now told her how I influence the galaxy at large. In that way, she knows my true feelings for her now. I didn’t believe I was hiding them before, but prophecy has a way of being especially convincing.

Instead, we busy ourselves with mundane matters. Fixing the hyperdrive. Blocking all incoming signals and communications. Instructing the droids to kill any enemies that come near the Hawk, just for good measure. Setting course for the Star Forge itself. Silence fills the ship like water as we prepare to make this final vision tangible.

Finally, it is time to leave. She joins me in the cockpit; during out preparations, she had not necessarily been avoiding me, but neither had she been basking in my presence.

I wonder whether she has been meditating on my knowledge of the Dark Side or on me myself. No matter, she will have ample time to figure out both. Her opaqueness might be so simple as that lingering cultural norm that master-apprentice relationships are wrong, as the Jedi strictly maintained. I disagree. I think they are the most fulfilling - the only truly fulfilling - relationships. 

Of course, this is a new belief. Malak certainly never inspired those feelings in me when he was in her position. Perhaps that is why he was a poor excuse for an apprentice.

Once again, I feel like I am losing myself in thoughts. It is time to act. The Ebon Hawk sails away from the Rakata world and I squint out the front bay window. The stars are winking and exploding. 

“It’s the Republic,” Bastila says with a grim edge to her voice.

“What impeccable timing they have.”

Bastila switches a few things on the control console and we shoot forward into the fray. “They’ll be no match for the Star Forge.”

She is probably correct. Without our involvement, the Star Forge could destroy anything the Republic sent towards it. We could run. Let Malak take down one of our enemies and find him once more when he is resting on his laurels. 

I think that this is what my old self would do.

But I cannot deny the ache of revenge that sits heavy in my stomach. I don’t want it to fade with time. I want to finish it, once and for all. Strike while the iron is hot.

“We needn’t worry about the Republic now,” I caution her. “Remember, Bastila. I did not see a Republic victory in the vision. Nor anything but death behind us.”

“I…”

“You weren’t focused on the sky?”

She looks away from me. I feel no regret for making her ashamed. “Maybe they were simply out of sight, master.”

“Perhaps.”

It is but an instant before we are landing on an open bay of the Forge. We prepare to leave and meet Malak’s end, but a part of me isn’t ready. A part of me wants to take Bastila in my arms and expedite what we both know is coming.

Is it possible to be a slave to your own fate when it is  _ you  _ who has determined that fate?

I shake myself of the thought, and we exit the ship.

Outside us are a few tan-robed Jedi. They look inordinately relieved at our presence, glancing over at us as they fight with hooded Sith acolytes, but these Sith are practically children, and they fall. One of the Jedi approaches us.

“Thank goodness you’re here,” she hurries to say. “They just keep coming.”

I laugh at her and Bastila cocks her head to the side. “You do know what the Star Forge does, don’t you?” she asks.

The Jedi looks affronted. “I-I don’t think that’s important right now! You two need to go kill Malak!”

“Oh, we will,” I tell her. And then my hand slips and I electrocute the lot of them. They drop to the floor like flies.

The cruelty feeds me; I didn’t realize how much I had missed twisting the Force like this. “See, Bastila? Accidents happen.”

She laughs. “You’re clever, master.”

We push forward.

Malak’s forces in the Star Forge do not put up much of a fight either. If I were not with Bastila, it would be boring. She is her weapon, brutal and visceral and hardly elegant. She does not waste herself on killing the soldiers artfully. Each faceless enemy we fell strengthens us. 

Still, her skill entrances me. It strengthens the lightning I use to clear our path through the Forge.

As we move into its black metallic heart, I feel Malak himself start to worry. He is weak to rely on troops when he knows the enemy is not a failing Republic nor rebelling planets, but us. Soldiers are useful, and his trainee Sith are bold but lack true power. They think that power is little more than killing when one feels the urge to, as Malak always did. He is too concerned with others.

The strength of Bastila and I is that we rely only on one another, which is to say, ourselves.

And yet, even with her here, I feel distant as we make our way through the ugly metal labyrinth to the bridge. Like this has already happened, and I am reliving it in my memory. The motions are all automatic.

So I am not surprised when we reach the main control center for the Forge. Malak is not here. The room is huge and an equally massive holo-map stretches from floor to ceiling, showing the thousands of planets and stars around this corner of the galaxy, moving slowly, possibly even orbiting around the Forge itself. Republic and Sith warships alike are as small as pinpricks but move as fast as an untrained eye could see.

There are far more Republic forces than Malak had planned for, I think.

In front of the map, in ridiculous, practiced arrangement, are three Sith, distinct from the rest by their colored robes.

The middle one smiles at us. “Malak has promised an apprenticeship to whichever of us lands the final blow upon you, Revan.” His voice is reedy and his smile morphs into a sneer when neither Bastila nor I tremble at his words.

“Master?” Bastila says brightly, turning her head to look at me, “may I kill them?”

I chuckle. “You may do whatever you like, Bastila.”

So she eliminates them as easily as all the others. When she’s done, she sheathes her lightsaber and stands before me reverently, locking her hands together behind her back and awaiting my instruction. “I can sense that he is close, Master.”

“Yes. I can, too. Shame on him for sending those neophytes. He is a coward.”

She nods. “He fears us.”

“He ought to.”

Bastila fidgets once more. “So…” she trails off, and doesn’t find words until she looks away from me. “Revan, if I am to use my Battle Meditation against the Republic, here would be the place. I can defeat their armies with the help of the Star Forge while you end Malak once and for all. It would be a simultaneous victory.”

“Is that what you want, Bastila?” I ask. This time, I am genuinely curious to hear her answer.

It’s so quick as to be automatic. “I want what you want.”

“It’s settled, then. I don’t want you here. I don’t want you out of my sight. Your Battle Meditation is strong, yes, but it is not your only strength.” I try to make this sound bolstering rather than condescending. It worries me that she is trying to escape her fate. Defy what she saw in the vision. I can’t have that. “I need you by my side, Bastila. You know this.”

For I know that she does indeed speak the truth when she says she wants what I want. Her defiance is empty. She is still tied to her preconceived notions of what it means to be a Sith, but only on the surface. I need to shatter that surface.

She hesitates a little, so I prod into her mind, just the smallest amount. It is the first time I have done it in ages. She has no defense against me, so I slip inside and prove to her that I am right.

Her acceptance is sincere, but she is Bastila, so she has doubts. “Is this your decision for the Star Forge? To leave it vulnerable? The Republic is… stronger than you know, Revan.”

“Bastila, were you ever eavesdropping when Canderous told me stories of the Mandalorian Wars?”

“Erm… yes.” At least she doesn’t question my tangent.

“The last time I was Revan, I employed a strategy of premeditated defeat, as you know,” I begin. “I manipulated the optics of war so that I would be victorious when it truly mattered.”

She is trying not to seem impatient, but I know she aches to fight again with Malak so close. “Indeed. Is  _ this _ not what actually matters?”

“No, Bastila. I don’t think it is.”

The sound of screeching metal and gunshots grow louder. She tries to hide her affronted look from me. “So… so we just let the Republic win? After all we have done?”

It frustrates me that she does not understand, but I know I would not have understood but a few days ago either. Amnesia is a cruel thing. Not because one forgets, but because one eventually begins to remember. 

“There must always be friction in the universe. A plague is more deadly than a sword.”

Bastila swallows hard but manages to look at me once more. I wish I could step further inside her mind. I want to know what it’s like to learn this for the first time. “I will respect your wishes, Master.”

“Good. Think of the future, Bastila. The stories they will tell of you when you’re gone. The lies. The confusion over what our true intentions and allegiances were. Think of that when we end the dense, single-minded embarrassment that is Malak.”


	5. Chapter 5

Malak is meditating, or rather, pretending to meditate, when we arrive on the bridge. The metal that forms his jaw is shiny and new. He wanted to put on his best face for us.

The tanks and their naked Jedi bodies line the perimeter of the chamber and the stairs to the viewing window. Outside, we can see a brutal battle transpiring between the Republic and the Star Forge. Ships fall out of the sky in every direction, forming spiral upon spiral. 

I think he has planned all of this to shock us. To him, shock value is more effective than a well-reasoned ideology.

He stands and turns to look at us. “Revan. You are strong to have made it here.”

“Neither you nor the Jedi could slow me down. But you aren’t surprised, are you?” I reply. 

Something in his eyes changes. I think that he would be smiling if he still had the ability to. “Not surprised, no. But I disagree. It appears that one Jedi did, in fact, slow you down.”

Bastila cocks her head at him. “I am a Jedi no longer.”

“But you are here. Revan could have dispatched you long ago. She had no need of you.”

I can feel Bastila realizing that he does not know of our Force Bond. I don’t want him to find out. “I needed an apprentice,” I say. “She is a better one than you ever could have dreamed of being.”

“So I see,” he says in that affected monotone. He thinks it makes him sound imposing. “Well, Revan? Are you ready to end your futile game?” He gestures behind him at the floating Jedi. “You should be proud of your progeny. I unlocked the true power of the Star Forge. It is not merely a factory, Revan. It is an organism, and I have discovered its food source. You never knew this, did you?”

His words, somehow, sting me. I do not know whether he is lying. Did I not, did he truly find something I had missed? Or is this yet another hole in my memory that has not yet been filled? 

There is, at least, one thing I can take credit for in Malak’s feeble mind. If I were in his place, I would be doing the very same thing. My amnesia is precisely the weakness I would have taken advantage of.

“Nonsense,” Bastila spits. “Revan did that first. She knew what power the Dark Side exerts here. You are a thief and a liar, Malak.” 

It worries me further that I do not know whether she is lying on my behalf.

“Do not cast blame upon me, Bastila. You owe me nothing but gratitude.” He tilts his chin up imperiously.

“I owe you nothing,” she retorts.

I gather myself and decide that I can take this - this cyclical conversation, this pointless arguing - no longer. “You spar like a child, Malak. I tire of it. It is time to end this.”

The strange look creeps into his eyes again, and he nods. “Indeed.”

He unsheathes his lightsaber, and it begins.

\---

There is little to describe. It happened exactly the way we saw it in the dream. Malak lays dead at our feet. His head lies further away but his lifeless eyes stare towards us, unblinking. The vast expanse of space is beyond the bay windows behind us. We are framed like a picture.

Bastila is still breathing hard; this was a worthy test for her, and fighting as she does takes a fair amount of energy. She catches her breath and the red lines of our lightsabers disappear. We relax.

“How did it feel?” I ask her. Giving Bastila the final blow was the least I could do to honor her, though in my anger, I beheaded him as his heart stopped. Strangely, I was more calm during the battle than I am now. Giving into that rage has ignited a fire in me that will not die down until the next part of the vision passes.

Bastila’s tone is casual, but I think she is lying to me. “Less like revenge than I thought it would. Not that that makes it any less satisfying.” She is still staring at his body, as if it might spring back to life. She has killed hundreds and has been responsible for the deaths of thousands, if not many more, but I suppose she felt closer to Malak than any of them. Maybe someday she will tell me more of what he did to her. Or maybe not. She has no reason to dwell on the past anymore. We have killed it all.

I smile, though I’m not sure she sees it. “You’re learning.”

She pauses, and then refixes her gaze on me. “You are a good teacher,” she intones automatically.

My smile fades and I feel the bubbling anger inside me boiling over at her placid words. “That’s it? That’s all you have to thank me for?”

“What do you want me to say, Revan?” she says, voice raising.

“I want you to be honest with me,” I practically plead. “You know what is coming, Bastila. You must admit it. You have feelings for me. I have seen them.”

“I-” she huffs. I expect her to turn away like she always does, but she doesn’t. “Yes. I do. I always have.” She swallows. “How could I not? Force Bonds are powerful things.”

Something deep within my gut twists itself into knots. She is lying again. I do not love her because we are bonded. We are bonded because I love her. Surely that cannot be one-sided.

Even in my anger, my voice is weak. “Bastila… did you think our bond had blinded you?”

“Don’t you see, Revan? I loved you, yes, but I resented you in equal measure. I had no choice in loving you. When I tried to stop myself, I couldn’t. You made me feel as if I were a failure at all the Jedi taught me to be. That I could exert no control over my emotions, and my motivation to try and do so lessened every time you looked at me. You were too strong, yes, and I hated myself for how you made me feel.” Her jaw sets, and I wonder if the tears welling in her eyes are of anger or happiness. “ _ You  _ made me fall, Revan. Because I loved you, and because I knew that you were right. You did not blind me, master. You opened my eyes.”

Before I can respond, before I can even accept her words as true, she kisses me.   
  



	6. Chapter 6

The universe does not collapse in on itself, my heart does not explode with victory. It is a kiss. But Bastila’s words have made me realize that this feeling has been brewing dark and heady since long ago. This is the natural outcome, the inevitable act.

That does not diminish the pleasure I take in it.

She pulls away first, as if she is desperate to continue explaining herself and proving that this is no accident; that she was not rebuking me before, but trying to keep her focus on our mission. Her face is awash with reddened joy. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve waited to do that,” she says. It is a cliche, I suppose, but it is true.

My mind is racing but my mouth is stuck; I am speechless. I knew the kiss was coming, yes, but not what preceded it. Perhaps Bastila controls what our visions show more than I gave her credit for. Somehow, I am glad she tried to hide it from me. It speaks of selfishness, a trait I only love her more for.

Her hand trembles from my face around to my neck and I kiss her again, feeling my split lips mend themselves under hers. At first, I fear it is the light of purest goodness and love smoothing over the scabs. But then, Bastila bites down on them, and though it is gentle, it hurts more than it ever had before. I have been healed so that I might be hurt again.

Her love is a pained one, and just as it has opened her eyes, it blinds me. No matter; I can see even better with the Force.

It is only fitting that we are awakened from the maelstrom by the clamor of metal on metal and the violent sound of exploding fuel cells. Smoke begins filling the bridge.

We break apart, and my cheeks feel wet. I wonder if I have cried. I didn’t know I still had the ability to.

“Is that the Republic?” she asks, her tone shifting serious quickly.

Something within me says that it isn’t the Republic blasting the Star Forge apart; at least, it is not merely the Republic. “I… I don’t think so.”

The crashing grows louder and now it is apparent that they are coming from inside the beast. Bastila looks at me, wide-eyed. “The Star Forge feeds on the Force,” she begins, thinking out loud.

I finish her thought with a stroke of realization. “It’s overloading.”

“That’s it!” she exclaims. “We have to go. It’s going to-”

We both know exactly what will happen. The Star Forge creates mass from the Force itself. And Bastila and I have just given it a bigger meal than it has ever seen. 

We run back towards the Ebon Hawk and I make a decision. “Bastila,” I call as we hurry down hallway after hallway, once-shiny equipment all being violently pulled off surfaces towards the core of the Star Forge. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want the Republic forces to make it out of this battle alive. I don’t want them to see us escaping. I want us to have perished in the collapse.”

She dodges a massive hydraulic pump that flies over her head and looks back in my direction, smiling. “I knew you’d say that.”

“A fresh start. The galaxy in disarray. Systems fending for themselves without the arms of the Sith or the Republic pushing them this way and that.” Another tank explodes near me but I cannot find fear within myself.

“It’s what you wanted all along, Revan,” Bastila quips. We are nearing our escape vessel. “I know exactly what to do.”

We reach the hangar bay; the force shield protecting it from the expanse of space has been irreparably damaged, but Jedi can survive in worse conditions. When we enter the Ebon Hawk, to my surprise, the bodies are gone, the droids are gone, we are truly alone.

I take the pilot’s seat and begin preparing to leave. Bastila sits next to me, concentrating hard.

“Can you ensure none of them hit us?” I ask, turning up the throttle to take us out of the Star Forge at speed.

Bastila simply nods. Battle Meditation requires her complete focus, but I don’t think she minds my questions.

Once we are clear of the hangar, it becomes apparent just how much of a bloodbath we have wrought. The Sith fighter ships have abandoned their onslaught against the Republic in their gravitational pull towards the insatiable Star Forge and even the Republic ships themselves have stopped firing, finally aware that something extraordinary is happening. The admirals are probably barking orders to retreat, desperately willing their ships to turn around, but they won’t. 

Not with Bastila here.

The crew cannot make the ships retreat. The captains find their throats dry. Before long, even the generals have a single-minded desire to set targets at full blast towards the Star Forge.

It is all because of her. For what is Battle Meditation if not a Jedi mind trick on a global scale?

I make a point to ask her of this later. For now, we have more urgent matters to attend to. The Ebon Hawk deftly dodges the hypnotized armies, setting no real course except  _ away _ . As more and more ships crash into the Star Forge, its mass grows and its gravitational pull becomes more inescapable. But the Ebon Hawk is swift, and before long, we are far enough away that we can hover without danger of being sucked back into the fray.

Bastila opens her eyes. Anyone else might have assumed that she was exhausted, drained from the energy it took to influence so many beings on such a massive scale. But I know it is not tiredness that has changed her face. It is the Dark Side.

“You’ve done well,” I compliment her.

“It is all thanks to you, Master.”

“Come,” I command. “Let us see what we have created.”

We ascend the ladder to the crow’s nest, though we won’t need to shoot down any Sith fighters this time. Its pinkish glass windows are unharmed, and we look out in wonder.

We are watching the death of a star. In all its splendor, though, I still keep wanting to turn my gaze back to Bastila.

I take her hand and she holds it hard, but she is transfixed by the collisions, metal shredding itself, catapulting into space and then back, the flameless destruction. I fear that we won’t be able to stay here for long.

“Where are we going?” I wonder aloud, rhetorically and not rhetorically.

“Far away,” is her quixotic reply.

I nod. “I think I’ve seen enough.” I  _ know  _ I’ve seen enough. The past is dead. No more use in staring at its rotting corpse.

So we leave, and we set a course for the Outer Rim. Away. Many of the planets there are unoccupied, if not downright inhospitable. I am confident that, once we are closer, I will feel one of them calling to us.

After we’ve finished with these mundane matters, we retreat to the Ebon Hawk’s sleeping quarters. This time, we will not need our robes. We are not there to sleep, only to dream.


	7. Chapter 7

I know why the Jedi prohibit intimate relations. I’ve always known, but now I have lived it. The power that courses through our bodies is great, and terrible, and it scares them. But it inspires me.

It is a long way to the Outer Rim, even at hyperspeed. I don’t mind. It means Bastila and I have time to explore, to enjoy, to redefine what we had learned  _ happiness _ means into something that resembles whatever we have right now. It is a shame that the Jedi teach that theirs is the only happiness. That happiness solely equates to light. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So we have time to muse, and time to love, and definitely time to do so in each and every part of the ship. Blissfully we erase the wretched marks of the past and replace them with our wild joy.

It is not only our bodies that are to be explored, though we do that first, as our impatience was overwhelming. After that, though, we use our mouths in other ways. We have so much to talk about.

Bastila and I lay naked on the cold seats surrounding the holomap in the center of the Ebon Hawk. I have set its coordinates to the Outer Rim, somewhere in the vicinity of where we are going, but it knows little of the place, and all we can see are stars. The barren planets remain a mystery.

I stroke the hair out of her face and she nestles her head deeper into my lap. “I have a question for you,” I say.

“Yes?”

“About your Battle Meditation. What did you tell the Jedi it was?”

She smirks to herself. “I told them I was inspiring our troops. Putting the warm, confident glow of the Light into hem. I was vague, but they believed it.”

“Was it true?”

“Never,” she admits, “though I tried to hide that to even myself. I was afraid they would find out the truth.”

“Of what it really was?” I still never tire of asking her questions.

“Yes. Because what I was doing, what my truest, most natural skill was, was a potent Dark Side power. I didn’t inspire our troops. I don’t think I could have done that if I tried.” She looks up at me. From this angle, she looks almost possessed. “No, my act was much more sinister. I weakened the enemies. I drove them halfway to madness, so they were so preoccupied with their mental unrest that they could not even try to fight valiantly. I was a master at telling them what they couldn’t bear to hear. If you’ll excuse the term, Revan.”

“Of course,” I say, smiling. “So what you did with the Republic and the Star Forge…”

“It was exactly the same as what I had always done.”

I run my fingers along her collarbone affectionately. “You would have never made it as a Jedi.”

“I don’t know, actually,” she says. “I lied for so long. And they never doubted me. I think I was a Sith masquerading as a Jedi since the very beginning.”

I lean down and kiss her forehead. “That’s what I saw in you. Even when I was weak, I could sense your power.”

“And I yours.”

We lay there in silence a while longer, and then she sits up straight. She looks like she can’t decide between asking for my orders and asking me if I’m up to fucking her again. Maybe she is wondering if those are the same thing.

Fortunately for her, they are.

I stand, feeling the power in my veins. “Kneel,” I command, and with parted lips, she complies. “Serve your master.”

* * *

The Ebon Hawk touches down on a rocky, windblown beach. The island is small but mountainous and the dark sea surrounding it is harsh and choppy. Verdant green cloaks all, and grey clouds conceal us from the snooping stars. I sense no higher beings here. Only animals, and they fear us not. It is a nice change.

We wrap ourselves in cloaks and leave the confines of the ship. Outside it is cool and misty, and the tiny raindrops blowing onto my skin ignite a part of me that I was beginning to forget. The human part.

Bastila nods once at me, as if to say she, too, feels like this is a place she can call home. And then she starts ascending the hills.

* * *

The line between night and day here is blurry, and shifts often, like the unpredictable tides of the vast ocean dictate how fast the planet rotates. I don’t know how long it has been since we arrived.

We have built ourselves a home, though our hands are still smooth.

I was wrong. I did not feel more human when we touched down on the island. I felt more connected to the Force than I ever had.

There is great power here; there is no question as to why I was drawn to it. My body has grown weak in the spare time. My senses have dimmed. And I would have it no other way.

For I can feel the pulse of the universe now that my own has slowed. I see not only this desolate planet, but the ones around us, and as I grow my roots deeper into the Force, I have no doubt that all the galaxy will be clear for me. Moreover, I do not merely perceive. I whisper.

I whisper, and all hear me. I speak chaos. I am the voice of change, the spark of an idea, the gut feeling.

And when my flesh needs attention, I have Bastila. She is my servant, but I serve her, too, when there is a fight to be waged light years away. If I am the spark, she is the inertia. If I am chaos, she is war.

But the galaxy cannot tumble in a day, a year, or a lifetime.

I seek to extend our grasp to another dimension.

* * *

It is one of my lucid moments. I leave the mountaintop. “Let us go to the cave,” I croak.

Bastila smiles sweetly and we descend the treacherous path to the water. The cave is where I go to echo. To shut out the universe and focus inward, or sometimes on my apprentice.

It is small and cold, wet and salty from the sea flooding it when I am not here. We sit across from each other on the smooth stones, and my ears, my eyes, my tongue all start working properly again.

She looks at me reverently. “What is it, Revan?”

“I know what I need to do, Bastila. Before I disappear.”

She cocks her head to the side, eyes asking what her lips will not. We are young, and the Force will keep us around for longer than most.

I breathe in the sea air and imagine myself filling this chamber. “I believe I’ve discovered something new in the Force. Something that can sustain us.”

“Are you referring to…” she asks, but she knows the answer.

“We have influenced minds and ravaged bodies. We have destroyed countless lives to change the course of the universe. It is time, now, that we created it. So that our power sustains itself not over decades, but indefinitely.”

“How would we do this?”

She is insolent for saying  _ we _ , but she is also correct. “Everything is possible with the Force.”

“And am I to be the test subject?” She seems intoxicated by the thought.

“If you wish to be,” I answer. “But it will not end with you, nor with anyone who now lives. I cannot have the lineage die out. My teachings will always be needed.”

It is said that the Force is constrained only by time. But I see no reason for that to be the case. I can leave my mark on it, a mark that will not fade. “Even when my body is gone, I can find new ones to inhabit, if only partially. Like a disease, I will spread.” I shiver from the thought of it and the chill of the cave. 

“How will you do it?” Bastila asks.

“A mutation,” I say. “One that does not show up in each and every individual. It will wait until it is needed. When the galaxy has grown stagnant, it will strike.”

Her expression falters slightly. “So... it is not needed yet.”

“No, since we still live,” I admit. “But that is immaterial. We are selfish, Bastila. My flesh still hungers. I confess that my desires do not begin and end with the universe at large and the pruning of weak and outdated cultures.” I smile to let her know that I still can. That, through all of my meditation and influence, I am still mortal. “I love  _ you _ more than any of that. More than I love the control I hold over the fate of the future. If you want a lineage, than I want nothing more than to give you one.” It is no accident that I echo what she said in the Star Forge. I want what she wants, for I  _ am _ human, and my whims are many. I cannot deny it anymore.

She puts her hand on my leg. “Well, I do.”

“It will be our legacy,” I whisper.

We kiss again, and then it deepens, and turns towards something I had missed in my sustained meditation. I know that my method of mutated reproduction does not actually rely on those base human desires to work. But we indulge them anyway.

* * *

I know why we came to the island.

Time has no hold here. The Force does not abide by it. It is cyclical, unending, a whirlpool with no end.

I have come to learn that I might not die if I stay here forever. I have also come to learn that I do not prefer that fate.

Someday, though I do not know when, I will leave. I have done what I must in this galaxy.

The lesser beings do not need us to impose our evils upon them. They readily come up with them themselves. I destroyed the Star Forge. I let chaos reign and governments set themselves up. I ensured that when Orders and Republics and Empires grow too strong, individuals will topple them. I work in shadow and I work from afar.

I am the Force. I do not act, I influence. I watch, and I whisper.


End file.
